Among its many, many virtues, what I loved most about Niki Caro’s Whale Rider is its toughness. In the past year, we’ve seen so many variants on the ethnic-female-overcoming-her-family’s-prejudices theme – My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Real Women Have Curves, Bend It Like Beckham – that the idea of sitting through another one, even one set on a staggeringly gorgeous New Zealand seaside, filled me with more ennui than expectation.